Literature & Language Essay: Weigh In between Hidden Intellectualism and Is Google Making Us Stupid?

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Weigh In between Hidden Intellectualism and Is Google Making Us Stupid?
The two articles, “Hidden Intellectualism” by Gerald Graff and “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr presents same ideas from different perspectives. Graff’s Hidden Intellectualism, for instance, criticizes the convention preference of the “school smart” over “street Smart”. Is Google Making Us Stupid? By Nicholas Carr, on the other hand, is questioning the impacts of the internet to human intellectuality. One thing that the two articles share in common however, is the general idea that modern education or what Graff terms in his article as “School Smart” is limiting human being from using their traditional senses in making decisions and instead depend on intellectual technology in making decisions. The two articles also weigh in on the impacts of disregarding “street smart” or traditional intellectuality on the current generation.
Throughout Hidden Intellectualism, Gerald Graff keeps highlighting how education system is limiting leaners in pursuing their personal interests. He points out that the education system is limiting learners to the subject areas that are prescribed in the curriculum only (Graff, 21). This aspect, he says prevents learners from exploring variety of talents that they might be having within them in areas such as sports, music or even fashion, which have dominated the modern cultural practices. Graff goes further to argue that in high schools, students are limited to conduct research and learn the school based curriculum only within the sources such as books that are recommended by the curriculums. In colleges, where students are given a bit of freedom, he says that students still face limitations as they are only required to explore more in the limited subjects of within the school curriculums (Graff, 22).
His general argument over “school-smart” notion is that it is not that the system is bad, instead he urges the incorporation of street smart elements in the curriculum as this goes a long way in even strengthening the knowledge and performance of student in whatever he or she is taught in class (Graff, 25). He even provides an example on how his interest in sports played a major role in fine-tuning his communication and debating skills through arguing out his facts about sports in the street setting. In addition, Graff also claims that he learned some basic things like how to avoid friends with bad influence and when to or not to use elevators not from the formal education system but through his street intelligence (Graff, 25).
In the article, Graff’s argues that is not logic to wax in Plato and Shakespeare’s ideas in the modern day education curriculum without acknowledging the cultural shifts that has taken place over time (Graff, 26). In this argument, the author implies that as much as Plato and Shakespeare’s ideas are relevant in understanding different conceptions in the modern day society, they do not capture or even help in exploring the interests of current generations of students such as music, sports of even interests in cars. In addition, Graff’s argument ...